Decathlon opens first full service US store in San Francisco

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Announcement of the opening of Decathlon's first full service US store in Emeryville, CA. While Decathlon's current San Francisco location does not show ebikes on its website that is a much smaller 'lab' store vs the new 'superstore' which is 6 times larger, this article mentions this is the second time Decathlon have tried to enter the US market but now they see the gap in the market left by the closure of Performance, Sports Authority, Sports Chalet, and Toys-R-Us. Decathlon are Europe's largest bicycle retailer with European sales >4million annually so their arrival in the US market is significant. Potentially this European sporting goods chain could decide to bring in their ebike lines, for example the French brand B'Twin and German brand Riverside. Decathlon are moving production from China to Europe with frames made in Portugal, Romania, and Poland.

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One thing they're doing right though is to introduce standard systems like the ones Bosh and Brose sell. The classic mistake a lot of these EU Sport outlets made in the past was to buy large quantities of e-bikes from no-name brands which subsequently went out of business. The outlets then found themselves stranded with a lot of disgruntled customers who needed parts that were no longer available. Looking at their catalogue, Decathlon seems to have understood that. I suspect that they carried no-name brands in the past and have now learned their lesson. The Riverside you linked is competitively priced for the EU market considering the Bosch motorisation, even if it's an Active line drive. It will be interesting to see what kind of models they propose for the US market.

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One thing they're doing right though is to introduce standard systems like the ones Bosh and Brose sell. The classic mistake a lot of these EU Sport outlets made in the past was to buy large quantities of e-bikes from no-name brands which subsequently went out of business. The outlets then found themselves stranded with a lot of disgruntled customers who needed parts that were no longer available.

Yes, but also selling low quality ebikes from name brands that inevitably break and dampen consumer confidence, for example the widespread customer dissatisfaction with the Carrera budget line of ebikes, with a motor by Suntour and Battery from Phylion, sold in the UK by Auto DIY store chain (and the UK's largest bicycle retailer) Halfords.